Video game maker EA Sports announced that it will be parting ways with Tiger Woods for the company’s golf game franchise. For the last 15 years EA has branded its PGA golf games with Woods’ likeness, but now that’s coming to an end. According to espn.com:
“The end of the deal means that the game won’t contain Woods’ name, he won’t be on the cover and he won’t be in the game. Although players unions in the major sports require players to be in products like video games, athletes in individual sports can choose whether or not they want to be in the games.”
“EA’s “Tiger Woods PGA Tour” franchise has sold $771 million worth of games over the course of its lifetime, according to market tracking company NPD Group.”
That’s a lot of golf games sold, which made it a mutually beneficial partnership and maybe the biggest celebrity game franchise outside of EA’s Madden franchise. However, in a blog post on Monday EA announced the new direction, and said it is a mutual decision between the company and Tiger, stating:
“EA SPORTS and Tiger Woods have also made a mutual decision to end our partnership, which includes Tiger’s named PGA TOUR golf game. We’ve always been big fans of Tiger and we wish him continued success in all his future endeavors.
“Moving forward, we will continue to work with the PGA TOUR exclusively to create groundbreaking golfing titles and our partnership remains strong.”
Tiger’s agent Mark Steinberg told ESPN that they “had an incredible run” with EA but their contract had expired. Tiger’s agent did say that he will be talking to other sport game makers about Tiger’s video game rights.
It will be interesting to see how things look going forward for EA and its PGA franchise. EA has undoubtedly built up the brand equity among video game golf players, and its next generation game screenshots look very impressive. But having a golf game without the No. 1 golf player may be problematic for consumers, and possibly hurt sales. Time will tell if EA’s PGA brand is large enough to stand without Tiger.
